Biograph y 5 3
Biography The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
B DUMAS, T.
I finished this book in December 2012, and it was the best book I read that year and also so far in 2013. Alexandre Dumas was born in Haiti, then SaintDomingue, to a French aristocrat father and a slave mother. After spending his youth in Saint-Domingue, he followed his father to Paris and took up life as a young, rich aristocrat. During the French Revolution, Dumas became a general and celebrated hero of France before his memory was forgotten, due in part to Napoleon’s prejudices. If this book was only about Dumas’ life, I would recommend everyone read it, if only so that this great man is not forgotten. However, Reiss does so much more as an author. By regularly taking tangents into French and world history, along with the political climate of the time, Reiss gives the reader a better understanding of how the French Revolution came about, how Napoleon’s coup ended it and the truly revolutionary ideas of the Revolutionary government (including ending slavery). The tangents do not detract from the story of Dumas, but rather highlight what a remarkable historical figure we have forgotten. I loved listening to this book on audio because the narrator smoothly pronounces the French proper names I would have stumbled over in my head. – Jennifer Lohmann